life

Spring in the air

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I just felt in the mood for a little modern poetry today, and I remembered my senior year of high school, when I took Advanced Placement Logic & Composition. We focused on personal essays and narratives for the first half of the year, and by spring, everyone was pretty much "in" college, so the teacher passed out sheets of poetry, saying "it's spring and love is in the air, so we're going to be reading some romantic poetry."

It just so happened that the boy who had my heart for the last three years of high school transferred into my AP Logic & Composition class in the second semester, so love truly was in the air for me. So perfect was it when the boy I liked volunteered to read all the poems I liked best -- a coincidence, I'm sure, but maybe it was something more? (says 18-year-old me)


Here are some of the poems (all e.e. cummings and Pablo Neruda, thank you Ms. Refkin), the first one probably being my favorite poem ever:

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

- e.e. cummings

food

My Sweetie Pie

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

I have at last found a dessert place that meets my expectations of what dessert should be.

It's a cozy dessert shop called My Sweetie Pie, but it also serves meals and your typical café drinks. I've had the lasagne there, which was better than a lot of lasagne I've had back in the U.S., as well as the brownie, strawberry pie, balsamic vinegar cake (I think this is their version of red velvet) and the chocolate cake. And the chai ... chai lattes are practically nonexistent at the Starbucks here, so I was thrilled to find it at My Sweetie Pie. It came in a small pitcher and was much more cinnamon-y than the Starbucks version, which made me very, very happy.



The strawberry pie (a little less than $5/slice) was really, really good, aside from the topping. The strawberries were fresh, but they were coated in strawberry jello, which also covered the top of the pie. Below this gelatinous surface, however, sat a very fragrant (I suspect they added some vanilla) chocolate pudding-custard filling, and the crust was nice and flaky. 


The chocolate cake was nice and creamy too, not too sweet.

I didn't take a photograph of the drinks or the balsamic vinegar cake, but it was kind of dry and not as amazing as my friend had made it out to be. I still prefer good 'ole American red velvet cake.

The downsides to My Sweetie Pie are that it has a $5/person minimum, but this minimum is not as strictly adhered to as it is in New York City, where each person must order at least $X. My Sweetie Pie seems to be okay with the bill averaging out to at least $5/person. Between my order of chai and my pie slice, I spent $10, so it wasn't a problem for us. 

If you don't enjoy dogs, My Sweetie Pie might be a problem for you. The owner has at least two large dogs who roam freely around the place. On the upside, there is free wi-fi ...


YouTube

What I'm Reading

Instagram